Spam King Living High in the Bayou

mikey573 writes "Connecticut's main newspaper, The Hartford Courant, decided to bring the issue of spam to the forefront with a top headline front page story Spam King Living High In The Bayou in its Sunday print edition. The article goes into describing the spam marketing company "Opt-In Marketing Services". The article goes too much into glorifying one person's success with spam, while failing to underscore the potential problems he has caused for others."

Comments

Time wasted deleting emails

[qazxsw]

At 80 million emails per day and 3 seconds average to delete each, that means 7.6 _years_ are wasted of people's lives for each day he blasts his spam.

Re:May be hated, but it works..

[unformed]

If he wants to spend the money to send spam, let him.

Fine, when it stops costing me money. Ever heard of metered bandwidth? His constitutional right to freedom of speech ends when I have to pay for it.

Yes, it matters a LOT

[pjrc]

---"He seems to missing a fundamental point: You do not have a Constitutional right to an internet connection."

However, data transmission SHOULD NOT be considered as long as you're paying the correct price for the bandwidth (perferrably per K-packet).

That's crazy. Kiddie porn and death threats are absolutely intolerable. Paying to transmit obviously illegal speech doesn't legitimize it.

Spam is a gray area, but it's certainly not true that you can transmit whatever you like without any limits as long as you've paid for the bandwidth.

---"If Qwest sees that they are losing customers because they provide internet access to you, they have a fiduciary duty to terminate their business relationship with you."

Does the same analogy hold true for the snail mail industry? NO.

Two words: Mail Fraud.

There are plenty of long standing laws and rules that regulate postal mail. Aside from prohibiting fraudulent advertising (as much of today's spam is), correct identification of who sent the letter is also required.

The spam idiots pay for the media, and pay for postage to my house. I just toss it away. Some are crafty and make it look like legit-like bills. Some promise prizes. It all goes to the shredder. My point is, if they pay through the nose for constand bandwidth, give them what they asked.

It's much more accurate to compare electronic spam transmission to other electronic mediums, such as telephone solicitation and advertising by sending "junk" faxes.

For telephone soliciation, a 1992 law regulates callers to identify themselves within 30 seconds. Companies who call are required to maintain "do not call lists", and the FCC imposes harsh penalties on soliciters who repeatedly call after requests to place that number on their do not call list. Many states have laws allowing individuals to sue for $200 to $1000 as well.

For junk faxes, which are the closest analogy to spam email (same or similar message sent to many numbers, to be read by receipient when they notice it later on), JUNK FAXING IS ILLEGAL.

Also illegal under the 1992 act is telephone solicitation (without opt-in or previous relationship) using pre-recorded messages. There are a few folks doing this today, as well as some companies junk faxing, and it is illegal.

Before 1992, junk faxing was not against the law, just as today there is no federal law that prohibits sending unsolicited advertising by email. Today there is no law that regulates usasage of correct headers and identification of the party who transmitted the message. Today there is no (federal) law that requires actually honoring the receipients request to not receive future mailings.

That's today. Soon there will be laws to regulate unsolicited commercial ads by email. Just as some advertisers abused telephones and faxes and lawmakers eventually responded, so they also will with spam.

And they rightly should. Just because you've paid to send some data via an ISP, you should not have any more right to send fraudulent ads with forged headers than you would to send a similarly illegal message via the USPS with a fake return address. Just because you've paid to send that message gives you no more right to ignore "don't send me any more" than a telemarketer has under the 1992 law.

There is quite a bit of legitimate use for email marketing, but at least IMHO, there's no excuse for forged headers, fraudulent advertising, and not properly honoring request to avoid more messages from the same sender. Sooner or later, these acts will be illegal (at least in the USA), and assholes like Ronnie Scelson are only serving to expedite the need for lawmakers to respond.